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Wednesday, October 31, 2007

There's a story about a party of men lost in a jungle who see crocodiles, jungle cats and snakes crawling across the jungle floor toward them.

"You can't fight them," the leader of the party thinks, "give them a tidbit and perhaps they'll be satisfied and leave you alone."

Deciding that it is hopeless to fight, the party push the weakest man in the group toward the beasts. The beasts fall upon him and devour him, but they only move closer.

"It's only fair after all," says the leader of the party, "it is their jungle after all and we have no right being here. Share and share alike. Surely that will be enough."

And so another of the party is pushed toward the hungry animals. The beasts fatten themselves on his blood and flesh and draw the ring around the party even tighter. One by one the men in the party betray one another until only the leader of the party is left. And he begins cutting off pieces of his own body to toss to the beasts. First he cuts off a toe and then a finger. The beasts eat it up but they only draw closer. So he slices off an arm and a leg. He falls to the ground and the beasts draw closer. And now having dismembered himself he can no longer even escape. The name of the game is "Who Gets Eaten Last". The only winners are the predators.

Western nations have been playing the game of "Who Gets Eaten Last" for some time now. The game has more powerful nations selling out weaker nations in the name of principle, in the name of supporting the inevitable victors and in the name of business and the name of cowardice.

South Africa tried to buy a peace deal by selling out Rhodesia. England imposed economic sanctions on Rhodesia and forced most of the world to go along. British intelligence subverted Rhodesia's intelligence agency and turned it into a vehicle for the enemy with the head of Rhodesia's own intelligence feeding information and aid to the Marxist terrorist Mugabe (sound familiar? Think about the next time another CIA agent goes public with criticism of the War on Terror or another top Mossad figure endorses the peace process.) Today Mugabe controls Rhodesia, now renamed Zimbabwe, which faces starvation and a brutal tyranny.

In exchange for selling out Rhodesia, South Africa earned the chance to be next on the list. After the world was done with Rhodesia it ganged up on South Africa. In the 90's it ganged up on Yugoslavia. First German intelligence worked with their old Croatian Ustasha allies to carve out Croatia. Then Clinton and NATO assaulted Yugoslavia, bombing civilians, Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian alike to carve up Yugoslavia and allow the Bosnian Muslims to create a Jihadi state in the heart of the west.

Today England faces the reality that it will wind up just like them. And who is left to sell out England or support it? Like the dismembered man in the jungle, England finds itself increasingly alone.

The same European Community which had spent the last three decades selling out Israel, now faces its own domestic intifadas. While Europe continues pressuring Israel to give in and destroy itself in the hopes of appeasing the barbarians at its own gate, the barbarians will not be appeased. And why should they be? When you cut off your own feet, the crocodiles only get hungrier. Islam doesn't intend to be a second class citizen in Europe and it won't be.

Western nations which have repeatedly sold out the nations that would have stood besides them now find themselves stretching out their hands blindly and laughably to Pakistan, to Russia, to China, to the Arab world in hopes of aid. The Arab and Muslim nations pocket their money and their military aid and keep the lid on a few terrorist groups just enough to avoid disturbing the peace. The West retreats to enclaves believing that the more of the world it turns over to the aggrieved, the safer everyone will be. And all this has only brought the enemy into their own cities and nations. Rhodesia is now London. The West Bank is in France. Yugoslavia is in Sweden.

The Bush Administration whose own interests would have been served by aiding the rise of conservative European parties has done no such thing. Instead American conservatives fawned endlessly over Tony Blair, which only helped insure the rise of an Anti-American Tory party. Rather than building a conservative American-European alliance, Bush has squandered European allies in Spain and Italy as cannon fodder in Iraq, building ad hoc coalitions where he should have built enduring alliances.

The sight of LGF cutting loose the European Anti-Islamists is a troubling one. It's also ironic that LGF is cutting bloggers loose for views and statements far milder than are to be found in the writings of Orianna Falaci whose photo prominently appears on the LGF page. There's little doubt that many of the European anti-Islamist parties including Vlaams Belang have roots in fascism and even ties to Neo-Nazi groups. Their agenda is nationalist rule not multiculturalism. On the other hand LGF has linked to blogs that want a Christian America, without comment or criticism. Stop the ACLU is on LGF's blogroll for example. Why is Stop the ACLU okay but not Brussels Journal? Because in Stop the ACLU's America, non-Christians would be second class citizens, while in Brussels Journal's Europe, non-Europeans would be? Is one really prettier than the other? If LGF can support Christian Dominionism in the name of the War on Terror, why not European Dominionism? Personally I find both to be dangerous and I wouldn't be able to live well under either one, but these days the name of the game is, "The Enemy of My Enemy is My Ally."

Right now the West tragically continues the process of dismembering itself. Aided by political correctness and abetted by business interests who care more about their prospects and what they can gain by selling their own down the river, the process is accelerating. At this rate a century from now not a single Western nation will still exist. And that truly will be tragic, both for the world and for human civilization. If you don't understand why that's so, go visit Mugabe's Zimbabwe.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Let me say first of all that I respect the different sites involved in this and I link to most or all of them. In many ways what we're seeing is not so much an ideological split, as a split between America and Europe, because as I wrote before, America and Europe face two different conflicts.

In WW2, Nazism was an abstract for Americans but a reality for Europeans. Then as now, many Europeans collaborated with the enemy and weak Europeans governments paved the way for the Nazi war machine. America was able to sweep in and save the day, mainly because America was not compromised by either Communism or Fascism. Americans could ride in on a great white horse because they were free of having to choose one or the other. Americans did not have to choose Fascism or Communism or face being squashed between the two. They could simply be Americans and be on the right side.

Today, Islam is an abstract even for those Americans who like LGF'ers are vigorous campaigners against Islamofascism. It's something they read about and something they know about, but unless they live in Europe, in Israel or in one of the few places in the United States that are Islamicised, such as Dearborn, it's not something that is truly real for them. That's not the case in Europe.

The threat of Islam to America consists of terrorist attacks, attacks that can kill thousands, maybe even millions. As bad as that is, the threat of Islam to Europe is simply annihilation. Take a look at Turkey and then imagine that as a European country. That's what Europe faces as its most inevitable scenario. That's not what America faces. America will never have an Islamic majority. A number of European countries are already near the point where the majority of their population under 18 is Muslim.

The key threat of Islam to America is terrorism. The key threat of Islam to Europe is complete conquest. Let's get that straight.

The kinds of methods propounded at LGF can be enough to deal with Islam's threat to America, but they won't save Europe. Conservative European governments in France and Holland are already cracking down on Imams, beefing up law enforcement and criticizing Islam, demanding secularization. And all of that looks good in headlines but amounts to nothing more than keeping the lid on, until the pot boils over.

A European country with an Islamic majority will not remain European. It will become Islamic. It doesn't matter what laws you pass, it doesn't matter how often ministers yell at Imams or what changes they make to the curriculum. With the Islamization of Turkey, there is no such thing as a secular Muslim country. EuroMuslim countries won't be the exception to the rule. Trying to subdivide moderate Islam from regular Islam or fighting something called Islamofascism won't work.

In the end a European country with a Muslim majority will either become South Africa, a dictatorship where a European minority desperately tries to maintain the character of the country against swelling protests and terrorism, or it will simply become Turkey or Malaysia. There is only one third option and it is not one that LGF or most American conservatives will countenance but one that is inevitable for both the salvation of Israel and Europe. Deportation.

No nation can survive with a hostile majority or even a large hostile minority. Americans have generally been understanding of the situation Israel faces. Europe is perhaps two decades or even less behind the curve on Israel. France already has its own Intifada. So does Holland. The problem is not as simple as kicking out a few Imams or putting more police on the street. It is a clash of civilizations and a clash of two nations. The problems are not racial, but neither are they simply cultural. They are national. And the only solution is an exchange of populations.

India and Pakistan ended their fratricidal bloodshed by such means. France went home from Algeria, but Algerians insist on remaining in France. Jews left the Arab lands, but Arabs insist on remaining in Israel. The situation is unworkable and there is only one hope for national survival in these nations. Deportation.

Any Muslim in the country illegally or without permanent citizenship, should be deported. Any Muslim in the country who has more than one wife, who has harbored illegal immigrants or committed fraud in bringing relatives to the country, should be deported.

Any Muslim in Europe belonging to a mosque on record as promoting terrorism or the overthrow of the national government and its replacement by an Islamic one, should be deported along with their entire family. Any Muslim who refuses to follow local laws or who lives outside the law, should be deported. Any Muslim belonging to a mosque which refuses to renounce and utterly reject the Islamization of the country and attacks on native Europeans by Muslims, should be deported.

It's not a solution, but it's a start. In the end the all too American LGF is uncomfortable with European and Jewish nationalists who recognize that national survival is tied to national integrity. Americans have the luxury of refusing to understand that and damning those who propound it. But no luxury lasts forever. Habla Espanol?

Monday, October 29, 2007

There has been a lot of debate shaking up the right hand side of the political blogsphere over Vlaams Belang. Narrowly broken down, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs has exposed the Neo-Nazi connections and racist sympathies of Vlaams Belang, while Atlas and Brussels Journal and other conservative blogs have argued that these don't characterize the movement and that a common front against Islam is more important.

They're right even as they're wrong.

In the United States the reaction to 9/11 created a broad opposition to Islamic terrorism and liberal apologetics and disdain for America, above and beyond the conventional Republican party or conservative movement. This "Front" has no name but it might be loosely called, a "Patriotic Movement". Many of those included in it are not politically or socially conservative, it contains a sizable proportion of liberals, atheists, Democrats, Jews, otherwise apolitical, libertarians and so forth.

There is plenty of overlap between Republicans and Conservatives and the Patriotic movement on foreign policy, there is much less on domestic and social policies, because at the root of it, a lot of the conservative movement, particularly the Christian Conservative parts of it, want a cultural revolution that restores the America they want. This might be defined as the split between the Patriotic Movement and the Conservative Culture movement. The Conservative Culture movement stands for governance and power in the hands of a Christian majority.

In the United States however, the part of the Conservative Culture movement that tended to add the "White" part and threw in doses of explicit bigotry and either openly sympathized with the Nazis or penned apologetics for them, were the paleoconservatives who split from the Republican party. Figures like Pat Buchanan, Joseph Sobran, Scott McConnell and Taki Theodopolus formed a splinter group that went on the attack against the Republican party and formed the right wing of the Anti-war movement. Unlike the Christian Conservatives who represent the Conservative Culture movement today, these are more likely to be Catholic and to be enraged against America in a way that reaches nearly Westboro Church proportions.

In Europe the divisions aren't anywhere as neat because in Europe the war against Islam is a domestic cultural affair. The reality is that despite the insidious penetration of the Koran and Islamization into public schools, it will be decades before this is a real cultural threat to any significant number of Americans. By contrast in Europe it is a threat today. In America the resistance to Islam is primarily a struggle abroad. In Europe it is a domestic cultural war, rather than a foreign one. That is why European Anti-Islamic movements are much less likely to be involved in a foreign War on Terror and much more interested in a cultural war against the Islamization of their countries.

Where domestically white power groups continue to view Blacks, Jews and other minorities as the real threat, while paleoconservatives focus on liberals, atheists, big government and of course the Jews-- in Europe, paleoconservatives and white power groups generally (with exceptions like LePen) have focused on a campaign against Muslims.

In American, both conservatives and the Patriotic Movement have the luxury of being able to avoid the white power and the more bigoted fringes of the right, mainly because the right and the white power movement want nothing to do with them anyway. At the moment they're on the side of Islamic terrorism. That makes things a lot easier.

European movements don't have that convenience and as the experience with Ron Paul supporters should be telling Republicans, the far right is good at infiltrating organizations and movements. If you think getting rid of Ron Paul supporters is tough, try the real European variety. It's one reason for some of this controversy.

But the more practical reality is that in Europe, Christian Conservatives are not multi-racial the way their American counterparts may be. They want a version of Europe that predates the wave of post-war immigrants and in which other races know their place. And yes that often includes Jews too.

American Conservatives have increasingly created a 'big tent' of sorts that at least admits other races and gives Jews a limited place at the table. But American Conservatives were a lot closer to European Conservatives a century ago. Some like the Buchanan and Sobran crowd still are.

What does all this mean? In practice a lot of the European conservative movement is going to be racist by our standards. The people most likely to want to do something in European countries, particularly states like Sweden or Belgium where real opposition is all but illegal in some ways, are going to be people on the right.

We can't dictate to the European movements who they're going to put forward, from a purely practical standpoint. It doesn't really matter what we tell them anyway. By exposing some of the far right roots in a Vlaams Belang we're not reforming them, we're just joining the choir of their existing critics. European anti-islamization movements in the end will have to define themselves and inevitably a proportion or even more than a proportion of their membership will be racist. Some even Neo-Nazi. This is unsurprising because the Nazis tapped into the nationalist and conservative movements of many European countries. Where the American Far Right has become anti-nationalist with Ron Paul as their figurehead, the European Far Right remains nationalist.

The reality is that wars are not won by carefully selecting your allies for ideological purity. In WW2 we allied with Stalin. Our mistake was not in an alliance with Stalin, our mistake was that in allying with him, we insisted on pretending that he was something other than what he was. That made it easier for him to stick the knife in our back.

In the long term, a Muslim takeover of Europe is far more likely than a far right takeover of Europe. The far right does not have the numbers or the demographics on their side and we can't fight both Hitler and Stalin at the same time. We have to pick one and ally with the other. The grave threat to us, as Americans and Jews on a global scale, comes from Islam, not from the far right. The sporadic bursts of violence by the far right are of concern to Jews still living in European countries but France's meltdown alone should be a lesson in where the real threat lies.

We are facing a global war against Islam and we have to back anyone willing to fight them, Christians, Atheists, Hindus, Communists, Fascists, Satanists, Democrats.

Or as Winston Churchill put it during WW2, "If Hitler were to invade Hell, I would promptly sign a pact with the Devil." The Muslims have invaded Europe. It means we will in some cases have to deal with the devil.

There's no point in demanding anti-racist credentials from right wing groups in Europe, after all American conservative movements are hardly pure in that regard, as any liberal can tell you. You deal with the people who are out there. You fight the Nazis by backing the Communists. You fight the Communists by backing the Islamists and you fight the Islamists by backing anyone willing to fight them. It's not pretty and as any idiot can tell you, it has consequences. But that's war. Wars don't end neatly. There's always a price to pay for them down the road. There's no such thing as a free lunch, just a battle worth winning.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

With the overlap of the American holiday Halloween and the endless memorial services for Yitzchak Rabin, it is hard to miss just how much they have in common.

Like Halloween, the Rabin Memorial is a festival dedicated to the dead and to death. Halloween celebrates the culture of death and the memorialization of Rabin celebrates the culture of death he created by making deals and concessions with terrorists.

On Halloween people celebrated by dressing in costumes. In Rabin memorials politicians celebrate too by dressing up in costumes, except they all wear the same costume, that of Rabin the peacemaker. After all Rabin as peacemaker has killed far more people than Dracula, Frankenstein and all the other monsters combined.

Halloween is a series of pagan festivities and so too the Rabin memorials are pagan festivities. Halloween reaches back to Pre-Christian times and the Rabin memorials reach back to pre-state and pre-religious times creating a cult of personality around one man, Yitzchak Rabin. Halloween is full of ghosts, the Rabin memorials are filled with only one ghost, that of Rabin presiding over everything.

Schools often work to involve children in their Halloween festivities. Rabin memorials in Israel now focus heavily on schools, even interrupting a strike by teachers, dragging them back to school for a few hours to spend a few hours brainwashing kids with the following. "Yitzchak Rabin wanted peace. The arabs wanted peace. But a certain Jew did not want peace and that is why we are at war today." Then everyone sings Shir LeShalom, when Monster Mash would be far more appropriate. After all the peace process did catch on in a flash and it is hard to deny that it was a graveyard smash.

Halloween focuses on the fantastic and the unreal. The Rabin memorials also focus on the entirely fantastic premise that Yitzchak Rabin had created and that only his assassination had somehow thwarted peace.

Halloween is all about terror and so are the Rabin memorials, yet where Halloween enables terror for one night, the Rabin memorials help enable terror for 365 days out of the year.

Finally on Halloween people do their best to ignore the fact that monsters are not real. On the Rabin memorials people do their best to ignore the fact the monsters are real and are among us.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Parshas Vaeira begins with G-d appearing to Avraham as three angels come bearing news, news of the imminent conception and birth of a child and the destruction of Sdom. The destruction of Sdom has long ago passed into our lexicon, yet Sdom appears to be the only city that G-d actively destroyed in the Torah, since bringing the flood. Not the cities ruled by Nimrod, nor even Pharaoh's Egypt, which was marked but not destroyed.

What therefore made Sdom so uniquely vile that it required the personal intervention of G-d to destroy it? It could not have been mere corruption and evil, because that was not so unique. Even the Caananites, who were expelled and destroyed, were not destroyed in a massive spectacular event as Sdom was.

In Pirkei Avot we are told that Midat Sdom was Sheli sheli ve'shelcha shelach, What is mine is mind and what is yours is yours. On the surface this may seem somewhat ungenerous but overall not all that hideously unreasonable.

When Avraham rescues the fallen Kings and Lot, the King of Sdom makes him an offer, Ten Li Et HaNefesh Ve'Et HaRechush Kach Lach. Give me the Souls (the people) and take the wealth for yourself. In other words the King of Sdom was making Avraham a seemingly fair offer, you take what's yours (the loot) and I'll take what's mine, the people.

Yet Avraham refused the offer, rejecting any division with Sdom. Avraham did not practice Sheli Sheli Ve'Shelach Shelach. Instead he unselfishly gave up what he had a right to, to the King of Sdom. That is because Avraham represented the opposite of the selfish approach of Sdom. Vaiera begins with Avraham hurrying to give of himself to his guests. Just as with the Kings, Avraham gave of himself without expecting anything in return. Sdom by contrast believed in full value.

Thus when Avraham and Lot part, Lot chooses Sdom. Why Sdom? After all Lot enriched himself in Egypt and could have gone back there, if it was only wealth that he was after. The description of Sdom a pasuk later gives us a clue. It tells us Ve'Anshei Sdom Roim Ve'Hatoim LeHashem, And the People of Sdom Were Wicked and Sinned to G-d. Now Roim VeHatoim LeHashem can be read as, Were Wicked and Sinned to G-d or Were Wicked and Sinned For G-d.

In Zecharia 14, we have the wicked who enslave and sell and proclaim Asherani, Baruch Hashem, I am Enriched, Blessed be G-d. The Gemara in Berachos 14 says that even the thief breaking into a house through a tunnel calls on G-d.

Why did Avraham and Lot split? Because Lot's shepherds insisted that G-d's promise to Avraham and Avraham's childlessness meant that they were entitled to the land. Thus like the thief, they believed in G-d only when it came to their own profit, but not when it came to giving unto others. Avraham by contrast believed in G-d when it came to giving to others.

Thus Sdom was a perfect destination for Lot, because the people of Sdom believed Sheli Sheli Ve'Shelach Shelach, fair trade, capitalism and taking from others. They were prepared to thank G-d and praise him when they enriched themselves but were not prepared to give to others. And thus they were Roim Ve'Hatoim LeHashem. They Were Wicked and Sinned For G-d.

This explains the otherwise odd Pasuk when Hashem states Zaakat Sdom Ve'Amora Ki Rabba.... Erde No Ve'ere HaKitzakota Haba Alai Asu Kala Ve'Im Lo Eidoh. The Outcry of Sdom and Amora is Great...Let Me Descend and See If Like the Outcry That Comes to Me They Do And if Not I Will Know.

This seems strange. Does G-d really need to descend down and see and what is the outcry? If it is the supposed outcry of Sdom's victims, why is no one besides Lot and his family saved? And why does G-d need to compare the outcry with what they actually do? Such comparisons are usually necessary when there is reason to suspect that something is untrue or false. What is there for G-d to suspect false?

The Tzaka, the outcry, is not that of Sdom's victims but of the Sodomites themselves. It is they who raise the outcry, the thief who calls out to G-d in his tunnel and the slaver who praises G-d. Thus G-d would descend down and see if the people of Sdom were genuinely as righteous as their outcries sounded or if they were as wicked as their deeds and sins made them out to be. Because as bad as sins are, sins in the name of G-d, Roim VeHatoim LeHashem are worse. A sin desecrates the world but those who sin in the name of G-d destroy all sources of morality and law. A thief is one thing. A thief who appears to be legitimized by G-d is a true abomination.

This is why Avraham pleads for Sdom by listing possible Tzaddikim, righteous men in the cities, for perhaps it is these righteous men who raise the outcry and not the sinners. For if it is the righteous men who cry out to G-d, then Sdom is not lost. If it those who are both wicked and self-righteous then Sdom truly is hopeless because those who are both wicked and self-righteous are unable to repent because they cannot admit error.

The essence of Sdom was its selfishness, its premise of Sheli Sheli Ve'Shelach Shelach. This marked their homosexuality, for homosexuality is itself narcissistic and indeed narcissism was the original diagnosis for homosexuality. Rather than creating something, it is about selfishness, gender interacting with its own gender. Homosexuality too proclaims, Sheli Sheli Ve'Shelach Shelach embodying a single sex world devoid of procreation or true relationships of opposites. Indeed homosexuality is the very opposite of diversity.

Even Lot's own family was permeated by this Sodomite vice of selfishness. Lot's wife turned back to look and was transformed into salt. What is salt? Salt preserves. Salt is inherently selfish. Then Lot and his daughters escaped only to form an incestuous relationship and incest too is the essence of selfishness, making the family of Lot seemingly irredeemable.

Yet from Moav comes Ruth who redeems this selfish trait that had crept into the family of Lot by way of Sdom and even from beforehand when Lot decided that he would inherit Avraham and that he was therefore entitled to take what he wanted, having faith in G-d only when it profited him. And Ruth discarded that selfish attribute when she proclaimed to Naomi, Amecha Ami, Your People are My People. In doing so Ruth left behind the selfishness of Moav, enabling a descendant of Lot's family to rejoin the family of Avraham at last becoming an ancestor of the Family of David and the final inheritors of the land. Thus Lot's dream of inheriting the land was at last fulfilled but only when a descendant of his finally redeemed herself by discarding the selfishness of Sdom.

Friday, October 26, 2007

A 20 year old girl stabbed an Arab who had been trying to assault her in Ramat Gan. As is predictable under the current government, she is the one now under arrest. This is itself a microcosm of what is happening in Israel. When the arabs attack, they get a free pass. When Israel fights back, it's condemned. When Israeli soldiers open fire on Arab attackers, they face trials and prison time. When Israeli civilians fight back, they go to jail.

And that is what perpetuates the real cycle of violence. Israeli and Western appeasement. It's appeasement that perpetuates violence. It is the suppression of those who defend themselves against Islamofascism that perpetuates the violence. It isn't Israeli violence that perpetuates Arab terrorism. It's a lack of decisive violence against Arab terrorists.

"When Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited London this week, his British counterpart Gordon Brown tried to reassure him that Turkey was still on track to join the European Union. But Mr. Erdogan knows that this is eyewash. Islamist Turks are not prepared to make concessions on any of the ethnic problems bequeathed from the Ottoman era. Their hysterical reaction to a purely symbolic resolution on the Armenian genocide which Congress hasn't even passed yet is proof that, nearly a century later, the massacre of 1.5 million Christians by their Muslim compatriots is still unmentionable.

The new Islamists, indeed, are even more intolerant than the old Ottomans, whose observance of sharia law was lax and whose oppression of their numerous Christian and Jewish subjects was mitigated by incompetence. Turkey is now almost 100% Muslim and increasingly influenced by more militant, anti-Western forms of Islam. Turks may want access to the European economy but they do not want to be integrated into European culture. Threatening the fledgling Iraqi democracy with invasion is reminiscent of Hitler's bullying of Czechoslovakia — and the response from the West has been the same: appeasement. Sometimes, what appears to be "historic" reveals itself to be nothing of the kind."

"Just before the most recent Ramadan, an electric cable leading towards El Aksa shorted. The Wakf, to whom the Temple Mount has been entrusted – perhaps it would be better to say abandoned – announced it intends to dig a five hundred meter long trench in order to replace the cable, which had been laid fifty years ago.

Temple Mount is a sensitive place – the most sensitive place in the world, says the Israeli Government and its Antiquities Authority. So sensitive that Jews are forbidden to ascent the Mount to stand for even a brief moment moving their lips in silent prayer, for fear that this will enrage a billion Moslems who will torch the whole world. The sensitivity about Temple Mount is obviously one-sided: The Arabs are sensitive; the authorities ignore the sensitivity of Jews. Therefore the director of the Antiquities Authority, Shouka Dorfman, hurriedly approved the Wakf’s request and insisted only that he would send an archeologist to watch over the work.

The Archeology Law sets the guidelines for archeological excavations in Israel and what needs to be done when other work is done at an archeological site. Of course such a dig is not left in the hands of a construction company. Expert archeologists from the Antiquities Authority dig at the site and only after they have ensured that all finds are preserved against damage, does the director of the Authority allow the work to continue. And Temple Mount is a sensitive site, and therefore the government’s legal advisor ordered that any work on the Mount can be approved only by a special ministerial committee. The Arabs told Shouka Dorfman that the work was urgent and because of the aforementioned sensitivity, he ignored the law and the orders and on his own authorized the Wakf’s tractor to dig across the entire Mount. Can anyone imagine him allowing a tractor to do something similar anywhere else in the country?"

"Israeli public schools put on elaborate assemblies to commemorate the anniversary of Rabin's death. The entire day is spent on discussing Rabin's "vision of peace," via the gradual destruction of the State of Israel and Jewish identity of Israeli citizens. Children discuss how [even though the Arabs have never kept a single peace agreement] the next time a peace agreement is signed with the Arabs, they will surely honor it, and the killing will stop. Israelis are to take the higher ground, demonstrated by their continual willingness to make concessions and to tolerate the deaths of its citizens,...all for the sake of peace."

-- Maggie's Notebook has an interesting exchange with the Washington Post's Robin Wright over the media's suppression of the changing upward trend in Iraq.

Now, I never mentioned "victory" in my original email to her, via her contact form", yet her claim that before she can report "differently" [good news from Iraq] depends on them reaching of "irreversible momentum" show her incredible bias as well as her complete ignorance of the Codes of Ethics journalists are supposed to use as their guidelines.

This is what is called reporting now folks.... is it any wonder that the new media is often getting the "scoops" on the dinosaur media?

Lemon Lime Moon has a good post on good news from California even among the flames because the American spirit still lives with Viva Californians

Californians are showing what Americans are made of... stern tough stuff...when disaster strikes. (New Orleans was an aberration) Over 500,000 people are evacuated in California, peacefully and without trouble or rancor. No violence, no looting, just cooperation and calm. There is so much help from average citizens with food and supplies for those evacuated that it is being turned away and some going to waste from overabundance!

The Qualcomm Stadium which housed thousands upon thousands of evacuees saw no trouble, just friendly cooperation and that California spirit. When earthquakes have hit California, the same spirit of cooperation and helpfulness has been seen.
Californians are a rare breed. Put down by many for their laid back style, they really can come through in a pinch and display a camaraderie that is wonderful."

Thursday, October 25, 2007

If there was one stable leg in the tripod of Iraq's Sunni-Shia-Kurd, it was the Kurds. The Kurdish areas were relatively stable and peaceful. The Kurdish leadership was generally pro-American. Among the debris of the Shia-Sunni infighting, it was an oasis. So of course that oasis had to be brought down. And now Turkey's Islamist government is coordinating with Iran and Syria for an assault on Kurdish Iraq.

The American successes in stabilizing the Sunni areas have made Iran and the Islamist Turkish government only more determined to sow chaos and bring down Iraq and Kurds represent the perfect wedge, resented by Turkey's secularist military, they force the US to choose between allegiance to the Kurds or struggling to appease Turkey.

The supposed attacks on Turkish troops by the PKK, reminiscent of the supposed attacks by Polish troops on German soldiers that "provoked" Germany's invasion of Poland have one thing wrong with them. Iran and Syria which support Turkey's proposed invasion of Iraq, were the ones who backed the PKK's campaign of terror against Turkey in the first place, funding and arming the PKK and providing them with safe harbor within their borders.

In 2004 the PKK began a renewed wave of activity even as Iranian propaganda funneled through Turkey and through such useful Western idiots as Seymour Hersch of The New Yorker began claiming that the US was backing PKK attacks on Iran-- despite the fact that the actual attacks were taking place in Turkey. While Iran has officially cut ties with the PKK, after the capture of Abdullah Ocalan, under his brother Osman Ocalan who was based out of Iran, the PKK has increasingly become an Iranian proxy much like Hizbullah. Even as the publicity surrounding supposed PKK attacks has increased, so have the claims that the PKK is backed by the US and Israel-- despite the fact that the PKK is a Marxist organization and was part of the Soviet axis of Marxist terrorist groups diametrically opposed to the Kurdish groups Israel and the US worked with.

Having triangulated on the Kurds, the axis of Iran, Syria and Turkey are now preparing to complete the destabilization of Iraq by forcing either an American crackdown on the Kurdish areas meant to generate a Kurdish insurgency against the United States, to force America into passivity while Turkey assaults Kurdish areas discrediting America int Kurdish eyes or to draw Turkey into a war with the United States. Either way the United States is meant to lose.

That is because in the aftermath of the invasion the U.S. has repeatedly allowed itself to be put on the defensive. The U.S. has no real leverage left and while the Surge has been a success and the number of fatalities and terrorist attacks in Iraq is significantly dropping, the real enemy is now being revealed with the majority of terrorist attacks now coming from the Shiite sector. With Al Queda all but done in Iraq and the Sunni sector having realized that the U.S. is their best shot out of their mess, Iran is trying to compensate by inciting the Kurd sector and bringing Turkey into the war.

The current mess is not part of the downward trend in Iraq, it is Iran's response to an upward trend. We won a battle and now we're being hit from a new direction.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Let's for a moment imagine that you're a propagandist... I mean editor at the AP News Desk. You're supposed to find the right photo to illustrate a story with the headline, "Israel: Militants plotted to kill Olmert".

The right photo to illustrate such a story would be

A. A photo of Olmert

B. A photo of the "militants"

C. A photo of a Palestinian Arab boy next to an Israeli soldier

Guess which one the Associated Press picked?

If you guessed A. or B. you have some concept of credible reporting and there's no place for you at the AP. If you picked C. the completely irrelevant to the story propagandistic photo of a Palestinian Arab boy next to an Israeli soldier, congratulations you're in. Welcome to journalism.

Random photos of Arab children next to Israeli soldiers are approved for use next to any possible story involving Arab terrorism. This is meant to suggest that the terrorists in question are little Arab boys. The fundamental dishonesty of the media renders it unable to report honestly without suppressing the truth in a haze of propaganda. Reporters come to Israel's struggle to survive with a preconceived conception that is unalterable and reality is filtered through that conception to arrive at the same conclusions. In the end it's why the the media produces the same conclusions regardless of what happens. I have seen Arabs more willing to question the official narrative on Arab terrorism than the mainstream media which insists on repeating the same fallacies about occupation, concessions and the cycle of violence over and over again.

The lie perpetuates itself because the cultural consensus of the left is backed by a hammer lock on the academic and media institutions that is so profound that the idea of those same people criticizing the "Israel Lobby" for suppressing the debate and controlling foreign policy is laughable. It's Oceania hunting Goldstein's dissent all over again in 1984. Talking about the power of the "Israel Lobby" is laughable in the face of the manifest and totalitarian power of American Liberalism. Go to the campus speech by any conservative speaker and you can see true "suppression of debate". Open the pages of the New York Times and you can see true "manufacturing consent."

As can be seen above, the media doesn't have to print phony photos as they did during the second Lebanon War. They can just keep printing photos out of context as they were doing long before Photoshop. They can furiously work to shove their propaganda down the throats of the American public every opportunity they get. The media cannot be made honest. On occasion it can only be made slightly less dishonest.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

After the brief window of commiseration after 9/11, we have been fortunate enough to have a long line of Europeans lining up to tell us that 9/11 was not such a big deal after all and we were all acting like children and needed some of that British stuff upper lip. The latest is senile Communist wannabe Doris Lessing, current Nobel Laureate, in the Nobel tradition of rewarding writers who have

A. produced nothing worthwhile

B. produced nothing anyone has ever read in the last 50 years

Nobel laureate Doris Lessing said the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States were "not that terrible" when compared to attacks by the IRA in Britain. "September 11 was terrible, but if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible. "Some Americans will think I'm crazy. Many people died, two prominent buildings fell, but it was neither as terrible nor as extraordinary as they think. They're a very naive people, or they pretend to be,"

Now for context, here is the IRA attack that the Guardian described as "the worst IRA outrage on the British mainland" and the BBC described as "one of the IRA's worst mainland terror attacks".

The M62 coach bombing happened on 4 February 1974 on the M62 motorway in England, when a bomb exploded in a coach carrying off-duty British Army personnel and family members. Twelve people were killed by the bomb, which consisted of 25lbs of high explosive detonated in a luggage locker of the coach.

Not to be insensitive but in Israel that's considered just another day, when the very same Fatah or Hamas terrorists whom the British cultural and political elite coddles blows up a bus, they shrug their shoulders or openly smirk and talk about the wages of occupation.

Now this is a bombing that killed 12 people. 9/11 killed 3,000 people. Not that terrible?

Now let's see how the uber-sensible brits reacted to a bombing that killed only 12 people. They passed new anti-terrorism laws allowing terror suspects to be held for a week without trial and to deport suspects to Northern Ireland from England to "special courts" with special conditions for handling terrorist suspects. Sounds familiar doesn't it?

Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the Sept. 11 attacks. About 3,700 died and tens of thousands of people were maimed in more than 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland

So nearly as many people died on September 11 as were killed in all three decades of the fighting with the IRA. ON BOTH SIDES. Yes that's not such a big deal at all.

Monday, October 22, 2007

With the parade of disgrace following behind the political supporters of the Oslo agreement, one remembers the miserable fate of Gonen Segev. Gonen Segev was a doctor who was elected to serve as a Member of the Knesset in Rafael Eitan's right wing Tsomet party. In exchange for a cabinet position in Rabin's government he voted for the Oslo accords.

Gonen Segev never won reelection. His betrayal of Israel and his party took him on a path that led him to smuggling Ecstasy from Holland using his expired diplomatic passport from his days in the government. He was caught at the airport in 2004 with 32,000 Ecstasy tablets in boxes of M&M's and sentences to five years in jail.

Gonen Segev was only the precedent for the wave of phony right wingers who would defect from the Likud to help form Kadima, a party dedicated to the political power of those in charge. Under Sharon, Kadima stood for Sharon's massive ego and personal power. Under the weak leadershipof Ehud Olmert, Kadima stands for nothing more than an attempt by the defectors, all its Gonen Segev's to hang on to their jobs by doing whatever is expedient while letting themselves be bullied by Condoleeza Rice.

Right now Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the ultimate Gonen Segev, is racing multiple criminal investigations and indictments to the negotiating table at the Annapolis conference, hoping that he can get a chance to give away Yerushalayim before he's charged with criminal corruption. Olmert has already declared that the Knesset's approval is irrelevant to his joint declaration with Abbas. Abbas, a leader nearly as weak as Olmert, reduced to little more than the puppet of the Fatah gangs soundly beaten by Hamas and that of the United States, is hanging on to power only because no one else in Fatah wants the job and Hamas hasn't gathered enough power to overthrow him yet.

Together Olmert, who has the support of 5 percent of Israelis and Abbas who lost an election and is staying in power only because the U.S. wants him to represent the linear opposite of democracy. Abbas represents the Fatah rule of corruption while Olmert represents the corruption of Israel's socialist elite. Both Abbas and Olmert are backed by a small circle of wealthy families and clans who care more about enriching themselves than anything else.

Olmert's rule has turned Israel into the third world and has sold out Israel's security time and time again. Where Sharon at least had a plan, Olmert only has an open pocket and a crooked smile on his face. Former IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon, fired by Sharon for refusing to go along with his Gaza Disengagement plan, that the real reason Israel did not respond to the Gaza rocket attacks was not the safety of the IDF or international diplomacy, but money.

The British Gas deal would pump billions into terrorist accounts and fund a renewed Jihad against Israel. But more importantly to Olmert and his cronies, it would move money into the right pockets of his friends. It doesn't matter that children huddle in bomb shelters in Sderot. It only matters that the pals Olmert and his Peace Now wife Aliza have dinner with will profit.

Olmert is nothing more than Gonen Segev writ large. Gonen Segev given control over Israel and treated as an international player. Olmert who had already been on trial for corruption became Sharon's Mini-Me and was rewarded by becoming his successor. Our fondest hope can only be that Olmert meets the same fate as Gonen Segev and some time in the future shows up at an airport with his old expired diplomatic passport which he intended to use for the Annapolis conference and a suitcase filled with Ecstasy Tablets wearing that same crooked smile on his face.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Michael Freund is a very sincere guy and his organization Shavei Israel has traveled around the world seeking out lost Jews. But the lost Jews he seeks are rarely Jews. They are on occasion may have a Jewish many times Great-Grandfather somewhere down the line, but that does not make them Jewish.

Now Michael Freund is outraged because the conversion of the so-called Bnei Menashe has been aborted by the government. "This is an immoral decision, motivated by ignorance and based on post-Zionist and racist considerations," Freund said.

This is as stupid a comment as was ever uttered by someone on the right. It's worse than Post-Zionist to import thousands of non-Jews to Israel and convert them. It's Post-Jewish. It's what the Jewish Agency did and thanks to them we now have Neo-Nazi attacks taking place inside Israel itself. As for racist-- the only possible racism as applied by Jews can be to converts. Jews cannot be racist to other Jews because Jews are a single race. We are not Christians or Buddihists or Muslims, we are not a "faith", we are a "people of faith."

"Amazingly enough, though, Sheetrit himself was born in the town of Ksar Souk, Morocco in 1948 and made aliya at the age of 9. He undoubtedly endured various types of discrimination as he was growing up here, as many veteran Israelis looked down on Sephardic immigrants from Morocco. It is therefore all the more astonishing that he would now adopt the very same prejudices about the Bnei Menashe that were hurled against him and his fellow Moroccan immigrants, merely because of their complexion or national origin," Michael Freund writes in his Jerusalem Post column.

This an astonishingly Post-Jewish statement. Freund is seemingly unable to understand that the issue is not some phantom idea of complexion or national origin, but Jewishness. Aliyah is not premised on bringing third worlders to Israel who might agree to convert. It's premised on restoring the Jewish people to Israel.

Shavei Israel has made it its specialty to travel the third world and find people there who picked up some distorted custom from some missionary and promptly label them Jews. Many people in the third world reached by Christian missionaries routinely internalize the story of Israel as their own story. This is fairly natural because Christianity is based around the Jews, yet provides them with no modern context of who Jews are. This is so commonplace that even Europeans have done it and continue to do it. British Israelism was based around this premise. So is the entire Mormon religion that currently fields a leading Presidential candidate. Even racist ideologies such as the Black Hebrews or Aryan Christians have emerged believing themselves to be "the true Jews".

It is apparent that just because a group of people believe they are Jews and practice some fragments of Jewish custom is not evidence that they are Jewish. Otherwise all of Christianity, which after all practices fragments of Jewish customs and believes itself grafted into the Jewish people, would be Jewish. That is the end result of this kind of absurdity.

In some cases Shavei Israel may actually find the descendants of Spanish or Portuguese Jews. In Latin America though these descendants tend to be too far afield to seriously even describe them as Jews. The irony is that there are "Lost Jews" that can be found right in Israel and the United States and Europe. Jews who were born Jews but simply don't live Jewish lives. Those are the "Lost Jews" we should be focusing on, rather than beating the jungle and importing Indian tribes to Israel.

Centuries ago the Jesuits made a concerted effort to find the "Lost Tribes" usually in America and Asia. They turned up much the same results as Shavei Israel and in some cases Shavei Israel is literally following in their footsteps.

There is a fundamental difference between Aliyah for Jews and Aliyah for any third worlder with some fragment of Jewish customs and a desire to move to Israel. There is a fundamental difference between real individual conversion which expresses an individual commitment and the mass conversion of whatever tribes, Shavei Israel finds. The latter is far more suggestive of the Idumeans than anything else. And that is why Freud is Fundamentally Wrong. Let's focus our energies on our brothers and sisters who actively need to be returned to Judaism. Considering that more Jews today are non-religious than religious, that should above all else be our priority.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Avraham begins Parshas Lech Lecha as the wanderer, indeed the Parsha itself is named after the act of exile. Thus far both preceding Parshas, Bereishis and Noach, involved a forced exile, Adam from Gan Eden and Noach from the earth itself. Yet Avraham's exile is unique for it foreshadows a new sort of exile, not from a better place to a worse one as with Adam and not a salvation from destruction to dispossession as with Noach, but an exile from a worse place to a better one, thus reversing the path of mankind up until that day. That long exile that his descendants, the Jewish people would suffer, is still that exile with a final return to a better place than the one we left. No matter what travails we suffer in the journey, we are still Avraham's children traveling through foreign lands on the way home.

Avraham's travails however usher in new problems. When Avraham reaches Egypt, he passes off Sarah as his sister, which leaves her under the authority of Pharaoh. He then accepts gifts and presents from the Egyptian nobility and Pharaoh himself. The disastrous consequences of this are twofold.

Firstly the birth of Yishmael, the son of an Egyptian maidservant or princess, that occurs when Sarah reverses the process by which Avraham put her under the power of Egyptian men by giving him an Egyptian woman. The result is Yishmael, a bandit and rogue who goes on to persecute her own son.

Secondly, the gifts Avraham takes creates an obligation in his descendants that cause them to be banished to slavery in Egypt. This results in G-d's vision informing Avraham that his descendants are to be slaves for centuries, because in having allowed the Egyptians to enrich him, the Jews could only properly be considered blessed by G-d when they discarded all of the material possessions provided by Egypt and reacquired them only through the force of divine power.

And thus the Jews became slaves, dispossessed and property themselves and through the progress of G-d's miracles, were the Egyptians sufficiently intimidated as to agree to the "loans" of property solicited by the Jews at G-d's explicit command. Why did G-d command Moshe to tell the Jews to take out these loans? In order to fully redeem the Jewish people, body and soul. The new riches that they emerged with after they left Egypt and the Egyptians pursued their human and physical "property" and washed up on the shore after being drowned by Divine Intervention were given directly through the power of G-d and not the power of man.

Thus Avraham had learned his lesson after learning that the Jews would be enslaved for centuries and rejected the "gifts" of the King of Sdom, for once the King offered it as gift, it was no longer a Divine Conquest, of the sort from which Avraham had offered his Masser. Had Avraham done it, the Jews would have fallen under the power of Sdom. Instead Sdom was destroyed rather than enduring throughout the centuries and millennia as Egypt did. When Avraham prayed for Sdom, he prayed that it be protected in the name of anyone righteous living there. He did not however pray in the merit that Sdom had done anything for him. Had they done so, it would have been a merit for them.

When Avraham and Sara learn that they are to have children, both Avraham and Sara laugh and view it skeptically. As a Mida Keneged Mida for laughing skeptically over a divine blessing that did come true, they were forced to mourn over a dark divine command that did not come true, namely the sacrifice of Yitzchak. Had they truly laughed with joy, this would not have been necessary. Instead as a consequence of not believing the miracle until they saw it with their own eyes, at the Akedah Yitzchak grew blind and was unable to believe the evil of Esav and could be fooled by Yaakov.

Unlike Adam, Noach and Avraham and Yaakov and Yosef and Moshe, Yitzchak was never exiled. Exile for great men is meant to transform them and transform the world or punish them but Yitzchak was not meant to transform the world and he did not deserve punishment. He was simply perfect but his perfection could not reach others. He passed along the Mesorah unchanged but for the addition of Mincha. Mincha is the border between day and night, between Avraham who brought light to the world and Yaakov whose descendants went down into darkness. The Mincha pleases G-d. It also relates to Menucha, and of Menachem, comfort Yitzchak's life was generally at rest compared to the other Avot. Sandwiched between exiles, Yitzchak bore the truth of G-d and yet was deceived, for it is hardship that schools us to recognizing evil.

Avraham took far too long to recognize the evil in Yishmael, yet when he did, he acted decisively. But Yitzchak remained blind too long to the evil in Esav. It was only Yaakov whose life was mostly spent in exile, who could properly rebuke his sons on his deathbed. People are not born perfected. Hardship tests them and enables them to see more clearly the good from the bad.

- Paradise Now director Hany Abu-Assad, the Palestinian Arab whose movie finished with a suicide bombing, goes Hollywood with a major project starring Nicholas Cage as a father searching for his son who converted to Islam.

This follows this weekend's opening of Rendition, basically a big screen version of HBO's Strip Search bemoaning how America tortures innocent Muslims. Meanwhile on the small screen, Aliens in America features its main Muslim exchange student character lecturing an American girl on "cheapening herself."

No wonder the Muslim world doesn't have much of a movie industry, they don't need it because Hollywood is happy to do its work for them.

- Ann Coulter continues her idiocy tour delivering gems like this, "Jews don't accept the New Testament, so, you know, as long as we're playing this new sport of 'he who is offended first wins,' if anyone's going to be offended by anyone else's religion, the Jews believe that my savior, a Jew, was a raving lunatic, and you don't see me sniffling and crying."

Yes but the difference is Orthodox Jews don't go on national television and call all Christians idol worshipers and suggest that we hope they'll see the light soon. That's what Ann Coulter did. The issue here isn't theology. The issue is civility.

A lot of bloggers are defending her comments as what Christians believe. Yes we're all aware of what the other believes. The point isn't what we believe, it's how we go about treating each other.

- In the blog roundup meanwhile, Israpundit has a new document in place as part of a campaign to bring about the resignation of the Kadima/ Olmert government.

Had the Kadimah Government only
- executed the Gaza disengagement, it would have been enough
- failed to provide for the resettlement of the Gaza Jews, it would have been enough
- failed to stop the daily rocket attacks from Gaza, it would have been enough
- failed to successfully prosecute the Second Lebanon War, it would have been enough

We the undersigned concerned citizens of Israel call for the Kadimah Government to resign and for the President to call for elections.

We are extremely grateful to Reps. Eric Cantor and Shelley Berkley for providing this House Resolution that can begin to attract some public attention. Now the blogosphere has GOT to get some TRACTION going on this story.
I know the (Unceasing and Global) Islamic Intifada gets to be a bore and you just wish it would go away. But our enemies are - very successfully so far - DESECRATING, DESTROYING AND ERASING the very basis of Judeo-Christian civilization. They are not only attacking the physical representation, but the entirety of our history.
You have two choices. You can put your burka on and say bye-bye to the very foundation (both literally and figuratively) of Western Civilization... or you can get to work.

The late 60s generation was the first to actively hate the nation they lived in while voraciously consuming all that the hated "establishment" had lived, worked and died to give them. They embraced Communism while devouring the plenty of a free market laissez faire society in the most blatant hypocritical ways. Now, these hippy, drug hazed flower kids are in the lead and making a mess of things with their childish ideas. They simply never grew up.

Childishness is not a western thing. It is a worldwide phenomenon today.Look at Ahmedinejad. The quintessential child. Petulent, moody, silly, ranting, selfish, name calling, hateful and in need of a good spanking.Osama Bin Laden is a child. Filled to the full with money he bullies others to make them like himself. He buys off friends and lovers to do his bidding.

With Al Gore’s win of a Nobel Peace Prize for appearing in a documentary someone else directed and wrote and putting his name on some ghostwritten books about the environment, the Nobel Prizes have officially hit a real low. It’s one thing if the Nobel Committee had awarded a genuine environmental activists instead of an ex politician trying to find a purpose for himself after retirement.

When celebrity is rewarded instead of accomplishment, an award ceases to mean anything except a bid for fame and relevance

After the completion of the Torah, the ceremony continued. Leading the procession was a decorated car with multi-colored lights strung all over it and with a crown of lights spinning around on its roof. Following the car, bearers of a decorated canopy marched while people danced around it. Under the canopy, others held the Torah scroll, which was clothed in white and crimson with a silver crown at its top. 600 soldiers and thousands of the town residents marched and danced in the procession, a loud speaker accompanying them, playing traditional Jewish music.

As the ceremony came to a close, Rabbi Grossman approached every soldier and kissed him while placing a half-shekel coin in his hand and said "shliach mitzvah aino nezok," messengers of a mitzvah are not harmed. Rabbi Grossman concluded, "When you return, G-d willing, healthy and unharmed, you will fulfill this mission I am placing upon you, and you will donate this money to charity.

"The night came. Twelve buses made their way atop the Galilee Mountains. Heavy darkness engulfed us, yet behind, in the growing distance, a bright flame pierced the night sky. In the midst of war and violence, we found love and unending human compassion at Migdal Ohr

Thursday, October 18, 2007

The current bestseller book in Turkey is "The Children of Moses," which claims that Islamist Prime Minister Erdogan and his Islamist party are really Jews and a front for a Zionist agenda meant to transform Turkey from a secular state into an Islamic one. How turning a secular ally state into an enemy Muslim state would help Zionism is unclear but that hasn't stopped the book from selling 520,000 copies.

Meanwhile of course Islamists in Turkey had been claiming for some time that Kemal Aturk and the Young Turks were actually Donmeh, Jewish converts to Islam, and that a secular Turkey was actually a Zionist plot. (A point the Washington Post neglects in its article which is a love letter to Turkey's Islamists).

Turkey's frustrated nationalists are accusing their Islamist enemies of being Jewish and Turkey's Islamists are accusing the secular nationalists of being Jewish. This is just a microscopic example of a global trend.

In Russia Jews are accused of being Communists by the Anti-Communists and of overthrowing Communism by the Communists. During WW1 the Jews were accused of starting the war to create profit. Meanwhile in England and France, Jews were accusing of harboring German sympathies. In Germany Jews were accused of causing Germany's defeat. That particular platform helped bring the Nazis to power. Today Jews are routinely accused of being behind the Bush Administration's War on Terror as neo-cons by Liberals while being accused of undermining the country through the left by the Right.

Strip away the rhetoric behind commonplace statements issued by pundits and foreign policy wonks like, "Israel is the key obstacle to peace in the Middle East", "The road to stability in the Middle East runs through Israel" and you hear what it really means, which is "All the problems in the Middle East are caused by the Jews." But where Arab figures are more likely to say it openly, Western figures rely on euphemisms.

Meanwhile on both the right and the left, Jews are routinely blamed for Muslim hostility to America. No doubt if only there were no Jews or Israel, Muslims would happily overlook America's backing for unpopular Arab and Muslim leaders overthrown by revolutions like King Farouk, the Shah of Iran and the House of Saud. They would also overlook that their Imams repeatedly teach them that America's cultural exports are an abomination and that America is a house of vice and sin. They would overlook the American troops sitting in bases on Muslim land and the humiliation of being nationally, socially and technologically inferior to the American infidels... if only it wasn't for the Jews.

The only reasonable response to being irrationally blamed for everything is to reject the responsibility for other people's problems and the moral authority of those people to heap their problems at your doorstep. Either that or to remain constantly on the defensive.

Israel's greatest moment came when it went on the offensive in the Six Day War. Its weakest moment came when it went on the defensive, giving away more and more land in the delusional belief that at some point the world would recognize that it was making a sincere effort to set things right. But only fools presume on the fairness of the world. The world is not fair. The world is ruled by a mixture of cowardice, brutality and greed.

The irony is that the most common anti-semitic stereotype leveled at Jews is that we are greedy and cheap and yet Israel has given away more and received less than any victor in history. Oslo has been the worst bargain of all time since the Indians sold Manhattan and they at least received 24 dollars in exchange for it.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

If you must remember one thing in the coming days, remember that. The survival of the Jewish people is assured, the survival of this current incarnation of Medinat Yisrael is not. We have reclaimed Israel before only to lose it.

Lag Baomer contains the remnants of the original Yom Yerushalayim, the bows and torches are all that remain of the day the Jewish people took back the holy city from Rome. If Yerushalayim falls again, what will remain of this era's Yom Yerushalayim?

The attempts to take back Israel did not end with Bar Kochba and Betar, though that is what most are taught. We tried again in the 3rd century and were slaughtered. In the 6th century we allied together with the Persian Empire and reclaimed parts of Israel and Yerushalayim for half a year before the Byzantine Empire retook it again.

Each time Israel fell it did not merely fall because of the enemy's superior force, it fell because of treachery from within, it fell because of infighting, it fell because we were weakened by fighting each other and by those factions and figures among those who chose to collaborate with the enemy. All three times that Yerushalayim fell beginning with Bayit Sheini, it fell due to infighting and treachery from within. It is not at all to take a look at Israel today and see that same phenomenon at work. The traitors and collaborators sit in the seats of power. The Hellenists and those who would settle for Yavneh and let Yerushalayim fall, are at the wheel again.

The day has passed when we could count on our leaders. The day has passed when we could count on someone else to stand up and do what we will not. The day is passing and the gates are opening but they are not gates of prayer but gates of wrath.

It is important above all else to remember that the survival of Israel, this piece of land we have struggle for and fought to carve out against the hostile force of man and historical inertia, is not assured. It is a nation, if we can hold it. If it is not, then exile waits again on the side of the gates.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

While we're talking a lot about Iran these days, Turkey is causing plenty of real headaches. The former bastion of secularism is looking more and more like Pakistan these days with a religious government right down to the new President, hate-filled propaganda, Al-Queda operating freely in Turkey and now a showdown with the Armenians and the Kurds.

Like Iran, Turkey is built on the oppression of indigenous minorities. In Iran it's the Azeris who make up much of Iran but have few rights compared to the ruling Persian minority. In Turkey it's a laundry list of ethic and religious minorities, topped by the Armenians and the Kurds. And right now the Armenian genocide bill is headed to the White House. The Bush Administration rightly points out that it will create a national security disaster with Turkey while Nancy Pelosi rightly points out that she doesn't care because anything that goes wrong for the White House can only help the Democrats. Not that it really matters though because sooner or later Turkey will openly turn on America, whether or not we recognize that Turkey is built on oppressing its minorities and even murdering them wholesale.

The supposed killings of a number of Turkish soldiers by Kurdish militants is now creating a situation where Turkey may invade Iraq. Iran which has been flirting with both Turkey and Iraqi Kurds is happy enough to take advantage of this and may even have created the situation. From movies like "Valley of the Wolves" to the open sale of Mein Kampf in Turkey, Turkey's Islamist government has been conducting a propaganda campaign against America intended to force a split and hostility between Turks and America that will cut off Turkey's military from America and allow a new Muslim realignment for the former secular Republic.

The real problem with Turkey is not the Armenians or the Kurds, it's an Islamist government that is determined to remake Turkey along the lines of Pakistan's General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and that government will seize on any pretext to create tension with Washington, if it's not the Armenians or the Kurds, it will always be something. Putting out the individual fires doesn't make the real difference, recognizing that the current Turkish government is our enemy, will.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Greater Than the Sins of War Are the Sins of PeaceFor in War Terrible Things are Done to the EnemyBut in the Pursuit of Peace, Things Twice TerribleAre Done To the Nation and to One's Brethren

Once again the planes take off, not for war but for peace. Conferences are carried on behind closed doors, secret proposals are put on the table and portions of them are leaked to test for the public's reaction. Phony surveys are commission that declare that %42 of Israelis are prepared to give up Gaza, Yehuda, Shomron, Yerushalayim, Israel and their own lives in exchange for peace. Another %5 percent are undecided.

We have seen this show before. The actors change, the gallery shifts uneasily, the curtain rises on rubble and burned bodies, on wreaths of peace and international awards. We have seen the show before it never seems to end but plays on in this theater of the damned.

It is always well received by the world's press which immediately comments that the final solution is near, if only Israel is prepared to sacrifice some more. Israel which refused to reclaim the Har Habayit and resume the sacrifices to G-d, now sacrifices to the enemy instead.

The burned offerings we bring are the bodies of our children, the severed limbs of our women and the earth of our land and the stones of our cities. All these we offer imploringly to the enemy in exchange for peace and the world audience claps, wipes a stray tear and like the spectators of the Roman arenas at which the captives of Yerushalayim fought for their lives-- demand more.

This theater will not end, until it concludes in one of three ways.

Either those forces perpetuating the drama of peace will be democratically overthrown or undemocratically overthrown or Israel will be overthrown. Those are the only three options there are and the only three options there ever were.

A Democratic overthrow requires booting out all the appeasement parties, including phony right wing parties like Yisrael Beiteinu and minimizing the electoral victories of the Haredi parties. It means making it clear that this a struggle between two widely divergent sides and it means getting a foothold in every community in Israel, it means an organized counter-propaganda effort using radio, the press and the internet. It means a large scale of confrontational protests and activism that shuts down parts of the government. It means looking at the Orange Revolution and the fall of Ceausescu and the East German government for tactics because this will not be a merely Democratic struggle but one conducted against a regime embedded by lies, that is profoundly un-Democratic and ruthless toward its opponents.

An Un-Democratic overthrow requires either a coup or waging a rapid civil war by overthrowing enough of the mechanisms of government and its political leadership to take power in a provisional government and put on trial those responsible for the last 15 years of treason and terror. Again the lesson of the fall of Ceausescu is instructive here, an out of touch corrupt government combined with mass protests that defeat the regime's intelligence apparatus and an overrun of the centers of power can accomplish the seemingly impossible. It is vitally important to remember that the overthrow of Ceausescu began with unrelated street protests that mushroomed when outside activists joined in and spread out of control. The perception of Ceausescu's loss of power and authority by his own corrupt henchmen led to the collapse of his regime.

The third option is the annihilation of Israel. We have been there before and as for what is to come, Uri Tzvi Greenberg said it best.

And I say: If your generation will be slowAnd will not grasp in its hands and forcibly mold its futureAnd in fire will not come with the Shield of DavidJudea will not arise.And you will be living slaves to every foreign rulerYour houses will be straw for the sparks of every wicked one.And your trees will be cut down with their ripe fruit.And a man will react the same as a babeTo the sword of the enemy -

Saturday, October 13, 2007

In the world where unimportant things are considered important, Ann Coulter's comments about Jews are eliciting heaps of outrage from Liberal Jews. The very same people who can barely be bothered to yawn when Iran plots genocide and Hamas continues its terror, are deeply upset because a pundit expressed what a great many Christians believe, both Republican and Democrat. I'm not defending Ann Coulter's words or beliefs, but if all Muslims did was made snide remarks about the inferiority of Judaism on television, that would be a vast improvement. If Islam made that same improvement, we wouldn't be looking at cemeteries filled with dead Jewish children.

What I find far more offensive than Ann Coulter are those liberal Jews who couldn't care less when rockets rain down on Sderot who suddenly become "Jews' when it's time to play their role as token minorities for the Democratic party. Be offended by Obama's racist church? Never. Be offended by Al Sharpton's participation in the 2004 Democratic Presidential debates? Also never. Be offended by Jimmy Carter's campaign against Jews fueled by his own religious beliefs? Forget about it. That's the role Uncle Tom Jews play in the modern Democratic party. Their role is to be offended as "Jews' by things Republicans say and my sincerest wish is that they stop pretending to be outraged Jews and go back to being outraged Liberals. The role doesn't suit them.

But if Christians have a right to find it offensive when someone puts down Christianity on television, Jews have the right to be offended when someone puts down Judaism on television. Even if that person is a prominent conservative commentator, just as Christians have the right to be offended when Christopher Hitchens or Andrew Sullivan put down Christianity. It's a little condescending to be promptly lectured on overreacting. If declaring there's a war on Christmas because the sales staff at Target are saying Happy Holidays isn't an overreaction, I don't think it's an overreaction when Jews find someone declaring on television that they all need to jettison their religion and joins hers offensive

Meanwhile Richard Dawkins, the Moses of Atheism, demonstrated again that being a rational secular humanist doesn't mean you can't still be a bigot. Of course all the Little Dawkinses, the cult of early twenty somethings who worship Dawkins rushed off to say that Dawkins was only criticizing Israel. But Dawkins never talked about the "Israel Lobby" Mearsheimer style, instead he talked about the "Jewish Lobby." Now the enlightened progressive camp is usually sure to try and maintain that dubious distinction between bashing the Jewish homeland and bashing Jews. Dawkins erred by not bothering to go along with the fiction because he didn't mean a pro-Israel lobby, he meant just plain Jews. He was speaking religiously not nationalistically.

But the very same people offended by Ann Coulter could rarely make time to be offended by Richard Dawkins and the very same people offended by Dawkins could rarely make time to be offended by Ann Coulter. Ultimately far too many Jews are captive to the right or to the left and criticizing Dawkins means defending Coulter and vice versa. I don't defend either one of them. I don't believe either of them are Anti-Semites in the grand sense. I simply suspect that they are uncomfortable with and dislike Jews. But they are in the end unimportant. The bigger issues are not which public figure said something offensive about Jews. We had the luxury to discuss such things a decade ago. Today the issue is not what is offensive but what is dangerous to our short term survival.

Friday, October 12, 2007

Another week has gone, Rosh Chodesh is here and as we celebrate the new month, which is also a sort of Yom Kippur Kattan because this is a leap year, we pray for forgiveness and for a better month. May those prayers come true and be heard.

Meanwhile in the world where unimportant things are considered important, Ann Coulter's comments about Jews are eliciting heaps of outrage from Liberal Jews. The very same people who can barely be bothered to yawn when Iran plots genocide and Hamas continues its terror, are deeply upset because a pundit expressed what virtually all Christians believe, both Republican and Democrat.

Meanwhile Richard Dawkins, patron saint of atheists, revealed that he thinks Jews run America. Because of course just because you're a rationalist and secular humanist, doesn't mean you can't offensively stereotype Jews and lend credence to bigotry. But then again Richard Dawkins has been taking shots at Jewish beliefs and practices for a while now while his Jewish apologists were too busy defending his ideas to object to the type of language and rhetoric that was being used.

Al Gore has received a Nobel Prize because the Nobel Prize Committee will give it to anyone whom they think will demonstrate their opposition to America. I'm guessing Michael Moore will be next.

1. Jerusalem must be at the heart of the campaign, the Holy City that still elicits deep feelings in the hearts of most Jews. The words “If I forget you, O Jerusalem” shall be the campaign’s motto, displayed on banners ( orange – two blue stripes with “If I Forget Thee” between them), stickers, badges, and bracelets. The prevention of the division of Jerusalem has the extra benefit that it will deadlock the talks over any other part of Eretz Israel.

2. We will paint the streets that Olmert has designated to be the borders between Jewish and “Palestinian” Jerusalem. To accentuate the message, signs, displaying “Border in front of you” and “Warning, you may be shot from the top of the walls”, shall be hung up along these streets.

3. Brochures and signs will be positioned on Mount of Olives warning: “This area is to be transferred to the Arabs: Where are the dead to be transferred?”

Many of the nations that surround Israel are children of incest and immorality from their very beginning. Ammon and Moav are the children of an incestuous relation. It seems the family of Canaan kept the tradition alive throughout the entire area and not just among Canaanites. But, even the Canaanite religion was perverted and the rituals towards their gods involved incest. All of their gods were also involved in incest.

I'd take it a step further than that. The goal is to make the women disappear. From the simple scarf worn around the head to the head-to-black burka that covers all in black except a woman's eye, the barbaric dress code turns these women into Cheshire cats that slowly blend into the dark abyss until they are either arrested and tortured for abandoning the dress code or become the victims of honor killings for immodesty.

I found a disturbing video on You Tube which first shows a placid Iranian President Ahmadinejad talking about human rights in his country with a tone that makes him sound like Mr. Rogers telling a bedtime story. Next, undercover footage of an Iranian woman getting arrested for violating the nation's dress code. Her blood-curdling screams are difficult to listen to. You can only imagine what happened to her after she was arrested. In the footage that follows it, women wearing headscarfs and hassled and even arrested by police for little more than showing their bangs.

At 3:08 minutes into the video you can a see a young woman with her scarf entirely off her head, sort of wraped around her shoulders. The look of abject terror and tearfulness says it all.

But meanwhile over at Mystical Paths, Akiva has a ray of hope to offer us with Sunrise or Sunset

Is it sunrise, or sunset? Is the day about to get brighter, or be plunged into darkness? Will we stand to light the way, or hide in a darkened corner? We cannot know. All we know is that we will have to upset our comfortable corner.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

On Sunday Shas Minister Eli Yishai barred Jewish workers from working on Shabbat during the renovation of the runways at Ben Gurion airport. Shas however has not barred its MK's from sitting in the Olmert led coalition that is preparing to hand over much of Israel to Arab terrorists... including Yerushalayim.

Which one wonders is the worse sin, chillul Shabbat by working on an airport runway or the destruction of the land of Israel and the murder of Jews.

Like Esav, Eli Yishai discusses taking Maaser from salt while his hands are red with blood. The Right Wing and Haredi parties, Ashkenazi and Sefardi, which continue to maintain this government while fussing over the niceties of Halacha are nothing more than pig's feet stretched out to the public. Look we wear beards, we don't work on Shabbat, see how Kosher we are. Yet as Pirkei Avot says, their tables are laden with vomit. Their hands are bloodied with the blood of their brothers though as Kayin they proclaim a thousand times with false piety, that they know nothing of the matter.

"What are you doing in this government? Do you really agree to let Hamas rule neighborhoods in Jerusalem? Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's plan to give the Palestinian Authority a state in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and much of Jerusalem is a danger to Israel and you are not preventing the danger by sitting in the government. To the contrary - you are giving it legitimacy and allowing it to happen."

And the answer of course is that they do agree to the plan so long as those neighborhoods aren't populated by their own voters. Netanyahu's question is rhetorical because by now we know that Shas will do anything for money and Avigdor Lieberman will do anything for a shot at the Prime Minister's office.

"The prime minister stressed that the division of Jerusalem would not be a part of the declaration of principles. However, he explained that any reference he might make to Ramon's words could undermine Palestinian President Abbas' efforts to control the Palestinian Authority, and the American efforts to promote the diplomatic process," a Shas member said.

Yes of course Olmert isn't planning to give away Yerushalayim. He just can't say so... right now, because it would be undiplomatic. But of course just like Rabin, Peres and Barak, once the agreement is made it won't include anything like that. After all if we learned anything from the last decade and a half, it's that our Prime Ministers never keep the public in the dark, never lie about their proposed concessions and never present them as a fait accompli when they're agreed to.

Go to sleep children, we're not giving away Yerushalayim anymore than we would create a Palestinian state, arm the terrorists and give them Gaza and divide up Yerushalayim. Again. We just can't say so right now. Trust us, it'll be okay.

He added that Shas would "find it difficult" to remain in the coalition if the declaration of principles include reference to the division of Jerusalem or the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel. "The Jerusalem issue is a very sensitive one for Rabbi Ovadia,

Oh yes, the poor dears in Shas would find it "difficult" to remain in the government when it announces that it's giving up Yerushalayim. Yet somehow... somehow they'll manage. As they have before. As long as their price in shekels is met. I hope they built another mikvas with those shekels to wash off all the blood.

Yerushalayim is a "very sensitive issue" for Rabbi Ovadia. How nice that we've gone from Im Eskachech Yerushalayim Tiskach Yemini to "a very sensitive issue". We've gone from the Leviim who mutilated themselves to Shas' "spiritual leader" who considers it a "sensitive issue". Compare his rhetoric blasts against everything under the sun to this anonymous little message informing us that it's a "sensitive issue" for him.

Yes children, Rabbi Ovadya Yosef finds Yerushalayim to be a very sensitive issue and he hopes it won't be given away. And if it is, he might shed a tiny little tear too. And then he'll inform us who else he's decided is going to hell in his weekly lecture.

Avigdor Lieberman and Eli Yishai posture and pretend that they're right wing, that they care about Israel and are against any division of Yerushalayim and they show us their cloven hooves. The average Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu voter is right wing. They are good people who have been hijacked by parties dedicated to narrow ethnic interests run by corrupt figures who care nothing about the country itself. These are the wages of voting for Yisrael Beiteinu or Shas. These are the wages of hell.

If a party or a man does not truly believe, Im Eskachech Yerushalayim Tiskach Yemini, do not vote for him and do not support him. He may look like you. He may speak your language. He may promise to represent you but he represent no Jew at all.

Hear the echoes over the years, the lies and the liars, the long nightmare of a decade and a half coming to fruition. Peace. Peace in our time. The peace of the bullet and the treaty of the shell writ over a mountain of our own dead.

For a decade and a half those dedicated to the expedient course, the traitors of the House of Israel, have told the same lie again and again. Arafat is a man of peace. Abbas is a man of peace. They are all men of peace even as they are killing us.

"I am determined to make brave but inevitable decisions that will mean foregoing the full achievement of dreams that fueled our national ethos for years," Olmert proclaims to the Knesset.

Yes indeed and so many have bravely made the decision to give away other people's homes and expose other people to shell and mortar. Bravely they have accepted the plaudits from their foreign sponsors. Bravely, oh so bravely they have marched to their award ceremonies while men, women and children have been murdered by the terrorists butchers whose bloody hands clasp theirs.

The decisions are inevitable they tell us, don't bother to even protest. It's time to give up on our dreams and accept the reality of the sword at our throat. Time to bow to the oppressor's boot on our neck. While our brave leaders fly bravely to Brussels, we are told to accept the inevitable.

"The Palestinian leadership today is not a leadership of terror. President Abu-Mazen and Prime Minister Salem Fayyad are committed to all the agreements signed with Israel, and I believe they want to move forward with us on a track which will change the reality between them and us."

Yes merely because they engage in terror, finance terror, preach terror and promise more terror... does not mean that they are a leadership of terror. And we will change the reality between us from our current reality where we are being shelled from Gaza to a new reality where we are being shelled from all across Israel.

"The Hamas and Islamic Jihad's murderous attacks from the Gaza border are intolerable... The firing of rockets on the southern communities cannot continue indefinitely... Iran, are making every effort to add fuel to the conflict and threaten the State of Israel with annihilation... kidnapped our soldiers Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev... Knowing all these facts, I still wish to announce here, in the most explicit terms - I have no intention of seeking excuses to avoid a political process."

Yes because after all what is the murder of Israelis, the terror campaign against entire towns, the threatened annihilation of the State of Israel and Israeli POW's but "excuses" not to make concessions to the terrorists. And how could such a feeble excuse as the survival of the State of Israel and the lives of its soldiers and citizens stands in the way of that fiery circle of damnation that is the "peace Process".

"We can, of course, prolong the process, explaining why all this is not possible, to maneuver, to move in circles, and to use many good arguments... And what will happen if we lose the chance? What will we say if we miss the opportunity?"

Yes what will happen if we lose the opportunity to hand over Yerushalayim to the enemy? How will we bewail losing our brief window of opportunity to give the terrorists control of Yehuda and Shomron all the better to shell our towns and cities? How will we live with ourselves if we pass up the chance to negotiate with an enemy willing to promise us peace while continuing to kill us?

"The message coming from this house must be clear: this is not a war between good and evil; it is not a conflict between the sons of light and the sons of darkness. What we have here is a necessary debate about the path, a debate that ends with decisions being made, and those decisions bind us all."

And that of course is exactly what it is. As Olmert has lied about everything else, it is safe to say that he is lying about this as well. Or to borrow from the Christian lexicon, the greatest trick of the devil was convincing the world that he does not exist. The sons of darkness do indeed sit in the Knesset. They pack the benches. They go off to negotiate with evil and free the murderers of their brethren while imprisoning Jewish girls. The sons of darkness are present and accounted for. Some wears suits and some wear beards. Some style themselves politicians and ministers and rabbis and doctors. Some style themselves right wing and some left wing. But it does not really matter.

The sons of darkness stand. Now is the time for the sons of light to stand against them.